Hey. I have a little story to share. So, in October of 2020, on the 16th, on our Discord server, I said this:

I'd also like to begin a bimonthly event cleverly named The Outfoxed Catchup, where we summarize everything that's happening with us. First one is due November 1st. We take breaks a lot and we realize that, sometimes, it looks like we're not doing anything. This should be a good way for you to know when that's the case.

This… is that “bimonthly” that I had mentioned.

Where were we?

The Beginning

Our first project was announced and shown on March 11th, 2019. Codenamed “Vruzki” (Връзки), or “Contacts”, it was the fruit of a self-imposed “Game Jam”, if you can call it that.

As part of a spontaneous idea, a 7-day game creation exercise was started. It ends this Sunday. The projects shown will still be kept in development after this first showcase, and we'd love feedback. Any kind is welcome. More updates on this soon.

March 18, 2019

The First Kamoto

This was when the official name was changed to “Kamoto”. The premise was a little different than what we’re doing now. The idea was to put you in the shoes of this vague, blank character, and see how much you would push them for the sake of gathering money.

“Contacts” were a major part of the replayability of the game. These were characters you could keep contact with, and they could do favors for you which, ultimately, would lead to more profits. Of course, at the expense of your time. The game was limited to seven in-game days.

As development progressed, feature creeping began showing itself around the corner. The scope of the project was growing. We wanted it to be big! Of course, we see now that just wasn’t feasible, or possible at the time.

There was an attempt at remaking Kamoto entirely on the Unity engine, as well. This would have given way to a much more up-to-date graphical experience, and questionably more immersion. A 3D modeller was brought on for character, city, and other design work. This idea was given a shot, but ultimately abandoned.

When we returned to the original codebase, we realized that the hasty implementations done in order to initially reach that 7-day-jam-deadline were… spaghetti. They worked, but were not maintainable, and rewriting them to reach the same spot was weighed as a downside.

Then, the codebase “Vruzki” was completely scrapped in favor of a complete redo.

The Kamoto Project: Today

“The Kamoto Project”, referred to internally, is perhaps the biggest thing we’re writing, drafting, coding, and aspiring to create. The progress is slow, as we refine the steps we take during development to ensure feature completeness is reached without creeping new things in, to write a compelling story that will keep players interesting during the projected [check back in E2] play-time of the game, and to create characters and visual designs that fit the world we’re also building alongside Kamoto herself.

Preview? Demo? Release date?

Difficult to say. We’ve hinted at demos before, but always failed to deliver at the date specified. We never had anything that we felt comfortable showing off. As we said in our previous blog post – we really want to hit the nail on the head! Even with just a preview, or demo.

At times, we were radio-silent. There was nothing from us anywhere. There still technically isn’t anything by us, from us. Yet. Still. So far. We cling to those words, because we get closer.

That’s not to say we don’t have anything for you. We’ve prepared some concept art and sketches you might find yourself intrigued with, but those aren’t in this bimonthly.

New Year, New Plans?

Yes, actually.

During the past year(s) we've worked on writing, conceptualizing, and designs for Kamoto as well as other potential games and franchises. Some months have been stale, this is true and we admit, which is why progress is inconsistent and generally unpredictable.

In E2 of the Catchup, we’ll show you some cool design concepts and snippets. We’ll also be transparent about which months won’t have bimonthly editions. Further, we’d like to take turns in each edition to tackle a specific subject and/or topic.

For example, E2 would contain design concepts, concept art, as well as code-talk and technicalities. But, E3 would write about gameplay progress, storyline snippets (which aren’t a spoiler!) perhaps?

Basically, one edition for the story and game lovers, and another for the developers and more tech-savvy audience.

We have a GameJolt Community for you to join!
As well as a Discord Server. Thank you for your support.

QnA!

Q: Will Kamoto release for free, or with a price tag?
A: Kamoto will cost an estimate of $10-$20 on launch. Perhaps.

Q: Will Kamoto have a freeplay mode?
A: It’s been considered before, but may not be there on launch.

Q: How long is the estimated playtime of the campaign (story)?
A: Check back in E2.

Q: What is Kamoto built on?
A1: The latest build of Kamoto is running on top of Slick2D, using an in-house library that corrects inconsistencies within it, including the 3D bits we need, as well as various patches and other miscellanea.
A2: Java. Kinda like Minecraft.

Q: Will you support mods or issue DLCs?
A1: We want to support mods and create the APIs for that ourselves if possible.
A2: We do not plan to issue DLCs in the traditional sense. We would like to issue a quality of life update to Kamoto after some time out on the market, in order to correct issues we may see with it, as well as add more content along the way. However, we wouldn’t be releasing much more after that. A released game is like a written book to us.

Q: Does that mean you’ll make a new game as a continuation?
A: It’s too early to think about that.